


Lines Uncrossed

by nagi_schwarz



Series: The Oppenheimer Effect [8]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 07:07:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6792442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, Evan Lorne, baking helps when he's having a bad day".</p><p>Samantha Carter gets a surprise delivery from Major Evan Lorne (retired), and they have a conversation about lines they've never crossed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lines Uncrossed

“Colonel Carter,” Harriman said, “Evan Lorne is at the security checkpoint upstairs. He wants to speak to you.”  
  
Sam looked up from her laptop, surprised. “Major Lorne? Is he all right?” He’d been rushed to the mountain a week ago after a nasty PTSD flashback. She hadn’t been around to find out what happened in person, in the middle of hosting the annual SGC Halloween Party, but she’d heard the next day, after he’d been released back to the care of his housemates.  
  
“There’s someone with him,” Harriman said. “Someone you probably ought to see before we proceed.”  
  
Sam reached for the phone on her desk, called up to the security checkpoint, told them to patch their security feed through to her.  
  
There was Evan, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and looking thoroughly wrung out, and he was carrying three artfully-stacked baking trays. Of his famous raspberry almond bars. Sam’s mouth watered at the sight of them.  
  
Beside him was - her throat closed. Duplicate O’Neill. JD, he was calling himself these days. She hadn’t heard a thing about him since he’d been emancipated and sent back to high school. There was no way the Air Force and IOA would have let him go free to wander the Earth, not with his precious ATA gene and all the classified information in his head, but she’d never imagined that he’d somehow stumble his way into the lives of two former SGC members and the one man on the planet who had an ATA gene expression as strong as his. She wondered if he’d stumbled into Cam and Evan at all.  
  
But he was also holding three stacked baking trays and was wearing a familiar expression of long-suffering, like when Daniel was rambling on too long about something archaeological or linguistic that O’Neill only pretended not to understand but that he definitely found uninteresting.  
  
Most of the people on the base had forgotten about the Asgard cloning incident, if they’d even been aware of it. That was for the better. JD out there on his own, without Air Force protection, would be easy picking for rogue NID operatives interested in harvesting his gene.  
  
“Ma’am,” the airman at the checkpoint said, “they don’t have ID, and they’re not on any authorized list. What do we do?”  
  
“I’ll be right there,” Sam said. She stood up. “Thanks, Chief. I’ll handle this.”  
  
She snagged the first two marines she spotted in the hallway and summoned them to follow her up the elevator and to the checkpoint.  
  
“Evan,” she said, and it was so strange, calling him by his first name. “How are you doing?”  
  
“Better, ma’am,” he said, with perfect military deference.   
  
“Not so much better that he didn’t go on a mad baking spree like a meth addict,” JD groused. He handed his stack of trays to one of the marines, who took in the cookie bars with barely concealed delight. “Our house has never been cleaner, and that’s saying something.”  
  
“But now the baking is done, and I am feeling better,” Evan said firmly. He also handed off his trays. “Give them to Rodney or John when you’re done, all right? Cam’s pretty precious about his carefully-engineered tray spacers.”  
  
“Of course,” Sam said. “And thank you very much, for sharing your talents with us.”  
  
“We have two more trays of those at home,” JD said. “If we tried to eat all of these, we’d go into sugar shock and die.”  
  
“What of your students?” Sam asked.  
  
JD shot Evan a pointed look. “They already got their share.”  
  
That was a lot of baking. Sam liked to bake every now and again - her cheesecake really was legendary - but she knew how much work it was, and every single one of the little cookie bars looked like a piece of art. Evan was a damn good baker. Rodney had mentioned his tendency to stress-bake, but this was more akin to panic-baking.  
  
“Corporal,” Sam said, addressing the higher-ranking marine, “why don’t you take those downstairs to the commissary and ensure they’re distributed in an equitable fashion?”  
  
“Yes ma’am.” The two marines turned to go.  
  
Sam waited a few beats till they were out of earshot, and she said, “Is there anything else I can do for you two?”  
  
“Nope.” JD spun on his heel. “The newest Final Fantasy is waiting for me.”  
  
“Actually,” Evan said, “I’d like a word. Wait at the car, JD.”

JD paused, eyes narrowing at the command in Evan’s voice, and the checkpoint airman looked a little spooked, like this was going to turn into a whole domestic dispute and he needed to be ready to take cover. Then JD shook himself out and sighed, tossed his head, and for one second he was every inch a teenager. He even rolled his eyes and said,  
  
“Yes, _Dad_ ,” with all the adolescent sarcasm he could muster, and then he was gone.  
  
Evan closed his eyes, flinched, and sighed. Then he opened his eyes and smiled at Sam. “Is there somewhere we can speak? Privately?”  
  
She considered taking him back down to her office, but somehow that didn’t seem like a good idea. She knew he came to the mountain once a week to meet with the base psych for his counseling and med management, but she didn’t think he was quite comfortable here anymore.  
  
“Sure. Let’s go walk on the lawn.”  
  
The lawn was the grassy space at the very top of the mountain used for training exercises in the summer, the occasional picnic, and once in a while, stargazing.  
  
Sam felt like someone out of a regency novel as they strolled the perimeter of the lawn.  
  
“Can I ask you a personal question?”  
  
“You can ask, but I can’t guarantee an answer.”  
  
“You and O’Neill,” Evan began.  
  
It was Sam’s turn to flinch.   
  
“Did you ever -?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“But you wanted to?”  
  
“For a time, yes. But circumstances change, and you have to move on.”  
  
“Why did you never?”  
  
“There was a line, and neither of us could bring ourselves to cross it.” But Sam knew that wasn’t quite true. She knew O’Neill - Jack - had crossed lines for her more than once. He’d also crossed lines for Teal’c and Daniel, so she’d never let herself read anything into it.  
  
“And if he had crossed it?”  
  
“I - don’t know.”  
  
Evan closed his eyes and tipped his head back, sucked in a deep breath. Then he looked at her. “You know him better than I do. You know things -”  
  
“They’re not the same person anymore,” she said. “It’s been three years. A lot can happen in three years.”  
  
“There are so many lines,” Evan said helplessly. “He looks barely older than the kids I teach. But I know he’s also almost old enough to be my father. And he was once my superior officer, and I -”  
  
Sam remembered the slam punch she’d felt when JD had announced, so blithely, that he was bi. She’d immediately recalculated her entire relationship with O’Neill, all those times he’d crossed lines for her, but all the times he’d crossed lines with Daniel, for Daniel, the way Daniel seemed to affect him more deeply, upset him more -  
  
“I can’t tell you what to do, how to proceed,” Sam said. “I’ve never -”  
  
“Neither have I.”  
  
“Does he want to?”  
  
“He does. And I -”  
  
He was _scared_ , Sam realized. Not just confused, but terrified. The frenetic baking - that wasn’t just about the PTSD flashback. She wondered what had happened between JD and Evan since the flashback that had triggered all this. Then she realized she didn’t want to know, couldn’t know. She hadn’t known Evan that well when he was 2IC of SG-11. Now that Rodney was dating John, she had slowly come to know everyone in that household better, mostly through Rodney and John’s tales of life in what they called Casa Atlantica.   
  
“Good luck,” Sam said finally. She put a hand on his shoulder, pulled out her best CO mien. “Don’t sell yourself short on a happy life, all right? You deserve happiness. We all do.”  
  
“Not those snakeheads,” Evan said immediately, and there he was, the old soldier she did know.  
  
She smiled wryly. “Well, you know what I mean.”  
  
“That I do.” He straightened up, stood a little taller, and said, “Thank you, ma’am. Enjoy the cookie bars.”  
  
“Oh, we will.”  
  
She walked him back to his car, and then she watched him and JD drive away, and she thought if her day got weirder, at least there would be tasty dessert to be had when it was all said and done.


End file.
